Wednesday, November 20, 2013

What to leave in, what to leave out

Two years ago I blogged about how Speechwriting always needs editing. Sometimes a speech or presentation can be improved more by deleting material than by adding, as was discussed on November 6th by Gavin McMahon in a blog post titled The Art of Leaving Things Out. Other times what’s there isn’t quite right, but can be fixed after you take another critical look.

Ken Burns is responsible for Learn the Address, a web site about the Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address. If you look alphabetically in the video gallery of people reciting it, you will find Bill O’Reilly right before Barack Obama. Mr. O’Reilly reads the standard version that is on the Lincoln Memorial. When you compare his reading with that text, you will find that he made two mistakes. A Google search did not find that anyone had complained about those flubs.

Contrast that with outraged comments from conservatives (for example at Breitbart.com) that President Obama had omitted the phrase “under God”. Mr. Burns eventually explained that he had asked the President to read the first draft (Nicolay Version), which you can find here at the Library of Congress. The President read that version perfectly.

The last paragraph in the Nicolay (draft) copy reads:

“It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us —that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The corresponding version on the Lincoln Memorial instead says:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

(Mr. O’Reilly added an extra here to this paragraph). I found it amusing that Ken Burns managed to get us to think about how Lincoln went from his draft to the actual speech he gave.

Last month I saw another example from pop songwriting. My friendly local public library had the three-CD expanded version for the 1977 Fleetwood Mac album Rumours. It had some demos and early versions for songs.

About Me

This blog is about public speaking. The author is Richard I. Garber, ACS, a Toastmaster. From July 2008 to June 2010 he was Vice President-Education for Capitol Club Toastmasters in Boise, Idaho. Opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author alone, and are not the official positions of Toastmasters International, etc.
Richard is retired. He has over twenty years of experience as a consultant on failure analysis (figuring out why things busted or rusted) and a Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science.
His email is r_i_garber at hotmail.com

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